15
seems to be ever present whenever forums of English teachers are held. Although English has been a compulsory subject at junior secondary school
early from the first year or Year Seven, its teaching does not bring about s
atisfactory result in both learners‘ communication skills and their English National Exam scores at the end of the junior secondary school period. As
reported by the Ministry of National Education, the National Examination national average score of English is 6.61 for junior high school students, which
was only 0.60 above the national passing grade standard for year 2005-2006. The issue of low achievement is very often attributed to the changing of
curriculum, low relevance in the education program and low quality of teachers.
1.3.2 The implementation of the Competency-based Curriculum
In 2002 the Government of Indonesia introduced a draft of a curriculum called the Competency-based Curriculum. There were several shifts in terms of the
philosophy and practices in teaching. Among other things was the change in the emphasis to the students‘ competencies as the focal objectives in the teaching
learning process. More specifically, this curriculum highlighted the importance of gaining life skills at the end of a period of instruction, regardless of the
debates on whether these life skills had already been parts of the teaching learning processes in the previous curriculum.
A more important change in the work life of teachers as a result of the introduction of the new curriculum is related to the shift in the responsibility of
16
the teachers, especially in terms of the preparation teachers have had to do. During the implementation of the previous curriculums, Curriculum 1975,
Curriculum 1984 and Curriculum 1994, the government, in this case the Ministry of Education, provided teachers with detailed guidelines of the
materials, teaching methods, and types of the assessment teachers should use in the classroom. The new curriculum, however, provided teachers with a wider
mandate in which they have the right to determine their own teaching materials, teaching methods and assessment that are appropriate for their students. Such a
wider mandate was considered a promising practice by some teachers, but was also seen as a burden by many more teachers. The shifting of academic culture
from being very dependent on the central government to being more independent was very much overwhelming for many teachers in the country.
Although training had been conducted to introduce, socialize and prepare the teachers for the new curriculum, there were still growing concerns on the level
of readiness among teachers, especially among teachers in the rural areas.
This concern was even worse due to the fact that the draft of the new curriculum took significant time to be officially launched as the country
‘s curriculum, and also because of the changes that continually happened in the course of its
drafting. One example of these changes concerned the naming of the curriculum that always changed before it was officially issued. At the beginning, this
curriculum draft was named the Competency-based Curriculum. Then it was the 2004 Curriculum and then the 2006 Curriculum and the
Kurikulum Tingkat
17 Satuan Pendidikan KTSP,
which literally means the Education Level Curriculum or School Level Curriculum in the Indonesian context.
Although the country experts working on the curriculum insisted on competencies as the
essential basis of the curriculum, the changing of the names also changed some of the philosophies and practical guidance in the implementation of the
curriculum. This uncertainty, to a certain level, stimulated problems among teachers.
1.4 Key research questions
